Catherine Kidwell

Catherine Arthelia Kidwell (January 14, 1921 – February 17, 2002) was an American novelist who began her career in writing late in her life, and was best known for her semi-autobiographical novel Dear Stranger.

Born in Lowry City, Missouri, Kidwell enrolled at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1969, together with her daughter Jane. She culminated her studies with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1977 at the age of 56. Her thesis, The Woman I Am, was published as a Dell paperback. Kidwell then developed the story further and turned it into the novel Dear Stranger, which Warner Books published in February 1983 and was chosen as a Literary Guild selection.

She continued to write and to teach writing at Southeast Community College in Lincoln; she died at the age of 81, after a struggle with Parkinson's disease.